Nor is this community of interests between peoples confined to their material well-being. It extends to every sort of scientific, political and moral activity in which men co-operate for the progress of their race. On the other hand, revolution in communi cations, rapidly destroying the factors of space and time, has rendered possible a development of warfare which has changed its whole character and rendered it universal and destructive in a sense never hitherto imagined. Indeed, it is not too much to assert that another World War would almost certainly throw mankind back into the dark ages. For these, among other reasons, some sort of international organization for the conduct of the relations of States was, in 1919, essential, if the human race was not to abandon the hopes and the ideals for which it had striven during centuries of progress.
With the reasons for the failure of the earlier scheme of a century before, and with the nature of modern national States in our minds, we can perhaps now proceed to analyse the essential provisions of the Covenant.
It may be taken as commonly accepted that the purposes and objects of a league are the following : first, the maintenance of peace; second, and as a corollary to the first, the solution of international disputes by methods of law, if and when the neces sary law exists ; when it does not, their solution by political methods, by public debate, by impartial investigation and by con ciliation on the basis of the accepted canons of right and justice; third, the promotion of international co-operation.
Membership.—Article i of the Covenant consists of the rules of membership of the League. These rules constitute a statement of the principles concerning membership that are essential if the members of the League are to have confidence that their mutual undertakings will be carried out.
Representation.—Articles 2, 3 and 4 of the Covenant stipulate for the creation of an Assembly consisting of three representatives of each member of the League, and for a smaller Council. The Covenant does not lay down the intervals at which these bodies shall meet ; it merely stipulates that the Assembly shall meet at stated intervals and from time to time as occasion may require; and that the Council shall meet in the same way, and at least once a year.
Articles 6 and 7 provide for the necessary secretariat, and for the nomination of a secretary-general, who shall make all the appointments to the staff with the approval of the Council. These articles also provide that every position in the secretariat shall be open to women. So much for the institutional organisation of the League as it was established by the Covenant.
Disputes.—With regard to the agreements not to resort to war, the Covenant embodies almost everything that any responsible authority had in 1919 advocated as practicable. By Article 12
the members agree that if there should arise between them any dispute likely to lead to a rupture, they will submit the matter either to arbitration or to judicial settlement, or to inquiry by the Council, and they agree that they will in no case resort to arms until three months after award by the arbitrators or judicial decision, or a report has been made by the council. Article 12 thus not only embodies an agreement not to go to war without previous recourse to peaceful methods of settlement for disputes, but also lays down alternative procedures by which, through the agency of the League, settlement can be effected. These two articles, indeed, leave great elasticity, but their purpose was to secure the establishment of a permanent court of international law to which the parties should in the normal course take disputes of a legal nature.
There is, moreover, at the end of Article 14, a clause designed to increase the value of the Permanent Court. This clause pro vides that the court may give an advisory opinion upon any dispute or question referred to it by the Council or by the Assembly. Thus the Covenant included provisions which went far towards enabling all international disputes of a genuinely legal nature to be determined by legal methods.
With regard to the other alternative method provided for the settlement of disputes, which members agree to by Article 12, that is to say, inquiry by the Council, Article i 5 lays down in consid erable detail the procedure which is to be adopted. It provides that any party to a dispute can oblige the League to take cogni zance of it by giving notice to the secretary-general. The parties undertake to communicate to the secretary-general as promptly as possible statements of their case, with all the relevant facts and papers. The Council is then given discretion to endeavour to effect a settlement of the dispute, and it is provided that if its efforts are successful, a statement shall be made public giving such an account of the dispute and of the settlement arrived at as the Council may deem proper. If the Council fails to settle the dis pute, it is to make a report setting forth the merits of the dispute and the recommendations which the Council thinks would be suit able for a settlement, and this report is to be published. A report may be made either unanimously or by a majority vote, and any individual member of the League which is represented on the Council has a right to make its own public statement concerning the dispute.